in winter i'll hold you in a cold place
by flesh and bone telephone
Summary: It would feel a little dishonest to keep himself from pushing Caroline's hair back from where her neck meets her shoulder, especially when he so badly wants to. — There's the girl in the photos and then there's her, there's Caroline. [Steroline, Caroline and a mind-wiped Stefan] FOR HANNAH.


**disclaimer**: don't own tvd. yet.  
**dedication:** FOR HANNAH ('but seriously') who asked gave a steroline prompt in the tvd ficathon tag and i kind of missed writing stuff for her, and kind of miss hannah a lot too. HANNAH COME BACK PLZ. everyone please go read her stuff, review and writer her angry emails demanding she actually updates her stuff because i'm not suure i can survive this drought any longer.  
**warning**: short and stuff. some mention of current delena and previous stelena  
**notes:** everyone go check the tvd ficathon tag and prompt stuff if you want, everyone's just going crazy writing for everyone else. prompt something and maybe one of us will pick it up! also wtf hannah your prompts are so _weird_ and i don't even know any ed sheeran songs but_ the things i do for love!_  
**tvd ficathon prompt**: "steroline - and you should never cut your hair, 'cause i love the way you flick it off your shoulder, or: memory-wiped stefan tries to match the caroline he sees before him and the one he's learned about in pictures"

* * *

_—_

_._

_._

_._

_And I think you hate the smell of smoke, you always try get me to stop. You drink as much as me,  
and I get drunk a lot; so I take you to the beach, and walk along the sand,  
and I'll make you a heart pendant with a pebble held in my hand.  
And I'll carve it like a necklace, so the heart falls where your chest is, and now a piece of me, is a piece of the beach,  
and it falls just where it needs to be and rests peacefully._

_.  
_

_._

_._

_—_

* * *

She's got a smile that could stop a train.

It's the one thing that stops his hand as he's dismissively flicking through the albums his brother and his girlfriend have tried shoving down his throat. Elena who's been watching him cautiously from her end of the couch notices the lull he takes on this particular photo, and she leans forward with her beautiful big brown eyes, hopeful that maybe something's finally triggered _something_. Stefan's careful of those eyes, though, begrudging, they really know how to hook into you, don't they?

Elena's been pretending to be looking through her own set of albums but she's actually been watching him this whole time like she's been waiting for him to flip out and suddenly remember this past that's very important to her, like she's expecting a sudden epiphany that will automatically return him to boring old Stefan who actually gave a shit about prom.

That's another thing, he's seen at least sixteen fucking photos of parties he can't even begin to understand the themes of, what the fuck was he _thinking_ when he agreed to put on costumes for _that_ and why the _fuck_ had he actually thought going to high school despite being an old as balls vampire was apparently a sane and relevant life-choice?

He shoves himself into the back of the couch, the fire in the hearth flickering moodily off his guarded face. He's schooled his expression and adjusted the album more towards him so Elena can't lean over, investigate and generally pester him. He should turn the page and just smooth past the shock of that bright yellow hair, but something's stilled his hand, something _stupid_ and _curious_ and that he doesn't want to have to explain to anyone because he _should_ remember someone who smiles that wide, shouldn't he? He _should_ remember the girl in the photo with her arm flung over his shoulder, grinning from ear to ear. The same streak of blue paint on her cheek mars the front of his shirt, and it's in a room that definitely isn't his with newspapers taped around the doorframe, and the Stefan in this photo actually doesn't look constipated. The Stefan in the photo actually looks like he's _not_the most depressing person Stefan's ever met.

Puritan Stefan smiling in the photo, all teeth and dimples. It's the _only_ photo like that. Stefan's beginning to realize that in the photos of him he's always ducking his head when he smiles, like he's trying to hide it away, but next to the girl he looks like the stupidest, happiest idiot so far. Like he's not hiding _anything._

He _should_ remember something like that. She's obviously not his girlfriend, because Elena's implied that _she's_ his girlfriend, and he flips over the next photos of school events, of the several stupid, trivial parties and the girl with the smile is always standing close to him, but not close enough to suggest any previous or present romantic entanglements. Cute little thing, though, nice long legs, and eyes so blue they knock the air out of him every time,

It's kind of that ridiculous over the top prettiness that exists in magazine shoots - like she just popped out of an all-american girl ad, marketable but homey, too.

He wouldn't really mind rolling around in the dirt with her, to be honest, and he wonders if old Stefan thought the same. If he didn't then old Stefan was probably gayer than RENT.

"How's your noggin', little brother?" Damon's glass of brandy sloshes next to Stefan's ear and the arm around his neck now is definitely unwelcome, it's heavy, Damon draped like a shadow behind the couch Stefan's sitting in, Damon's hand slinging over his chest to thump Stefan's heart like he's his stupid little brother is patronizing, it's too close to his throat, and Stefan doesn't think Damon should be anywhere near his throat.

Damon keeps telling him they're brothers, but he doesn't like how low his smile gets when he looks at _his_girlfriend, and he doesn't like how okay Elena is with Damon sauntering over and sitting _that_ close to her on the couch.

Later, it'll make a lot more sense when Stefan finally fucking figures out that Elena isn't even _his_ to get mad over anymore - which while initially infuriating (because that was an initial leaving out of vital information, wasn't it?) is oddly freeing.

Stefan doesn't answer, and Damon doesn't press, content to look over his little brother's girlfriend's shoulder and into Elena's album and scoff into his glass whenever he sees something that particularly amuses him. Stefan got right off the bat that Damon's sense of humor was more than messed up so he doesn't really want to pry.

Stefan ignores them both, flicking through the pages again, he'd turned over to another picture before Damon could realize he'd been lingering too long on the one with the blonde girl; because his Damon would probably make some tasteless comment about lovely wracks and blondes being more fun. Because Damon, Stefan was learning, was a real class act.

"Leave out any details out of my life story?" Stefan asks testily, disliking how quiet snarky Damon is being, because Elena seems to be distracting Damon a whole lot than her being his little brother's girlfriend should entail. "You know, the life story you've _fed_ me."

Elena's expression goes soft and the hurt in her eyes snags something in Stefan's chest that he doesn't _want_fucking snagged. She recovers at his scathing expression, defensive, but still gentle, like Stefan might explode if she's not careful or something. "We've told you everything we can."

"Do you actually think we've withheld information?" Damon sneers at him, like Stefan mistrusting him is totally inconceivable after he fucking _flipped the car with both of them in it._ "We _gave_ you your lame-o diaries to read, written_ by_ you, you can trust those if you want. Except, of course, you've got to actually _read_ them."

"I don't _want_ to read them."

"Well, if you think we're withholding information - "

"They're the most melodramatic, most depressing things I've ever read, and there are over a hundred tomes of that bullshit. I don't want to read what I can _hear_."

"What a fix, since you obviously don't trust us."

"Should I?" Stefan challenged, "I didn't read much, but I managed to flick open a page that mentioned you_murdering_ my best friend. Lexi, was it?"

Elena bit the inside of her cheek, looking chastised on Damon's behalf. Damon only gave Stefan a tight unrepentant smirk that told him the day Damon actually felt sorry for murdering people was the day hell froze over.

"You have Caroline," Elena said quietly, offering. "I can call her. She's _kind_ of your best friend."

"Which one's Caroline?"

"The blonde one," _Damon!_ Elena hissed, coloring at his satisfied tone. Damon still kept that infuriating, shit eating grin, looking for all the world that _the blonde one_ was a thing he'd once had on his plate. "Sweet little piece."

The _blonde_ one, the one with the oodles of golden hair, piled on her head in the photo with the paint, messily piled hair like yellow macaroni. With her arm around his shoulders like it was so easy and Stefan _allowing_ it, that ease of touch between them, the kind that the two people sat opposite him were afraid of. _Elena_ had touched his face with fear and awe in her own, her fingertips trembling, like she was waiting for him to crumble beneath her fingers, like Stefan was centuries-old paper.

Damon would touch Stefan like a reminder, saying _little brother_, reminding him who was who in _this_ relationship, who held the reigns, who _owned_ who - Damon ruffling his hair like he would the coat of a dog that was vicious, like he could turn his hand flat and opened palm if Stefan pulled too hard on the leash, except that Damon was afraid a little too, wasn't he? Afraid that Stefan wouldn't wear the muzzle they were giving him, that no-memory Stefan couldn't be controlled by sentiment or feeling associated with memory.

His face must have looked like thunder, because Damon shriveled back a bit and tried to hide his moment of surprise with a roll of his eyes. "Fine, _Caroline_, Jesus."

Elena glared at Damon, it was oddly domestic, this tension between his brother and _his_ girlfriend. "Better," she huffed, face twisting, it was more emotion than Elena ever bothered to show Stefan and he regretted immediately how open and kind her expression went when she turned back to him, how eager and earnest. "You can see her tomorrow, she'll be coming to Mystic Falls for the bell festival. She's your best friend."

Elena should have stressed the term friend more, _and_ should have actually made things clearer about her own relationship with him else wise he wouldn't have been as pissed the night after, fouling his mouth with liquor because anger made him so badly want to rub it red with blood.

How _stupid_ had he been? He'd been so determined not to be manipulated by Damon and Elena's stories about who he apparently was that he'd forgotten the glaring plot holes in the stories while Elena touched his face and talked so softly to him, he should have asked about the unexplained gaps in narrative that should have told him that _no_, Elena was _not_ his girlfriend, they were not an item, and _yes_, she was fucking his _brother._

The firelight hit Caroline's hair, it looked even better on her than the sunlight in the photo had. He wondered a little about how her head would look against the carpet before the fireplace, how beneath him in that roiling amber darkness how it might look orange, red, _gold_.

She came towards him with face open, and mouth curving wide, curving his throat ear to ear with how warm she looked, how alive, how _unafraid_ - like she wasn't afraid of him saying the wrong things, or _wanting_ the wrong things.

He swallowed hard, his own mouth grinning, teeth. He felt _vicious_, but curious too.

She stuttered in her move towards him, his look of recognition had surprised her and how _adorable_ was it that she had expected him to not remember her? Like she didn't expect him to suddenly get everything like Elena and Damon expected him to get everything. Like she'd been prepared for him not knowing her and she was okay with it, she didn't _blame_ him.

Her brow raised, her face quirked in friendly amusement. Like she thought he was joking that he thought she looked tasty, like she didn't take him seriously. It was nice, not to be taken seriously for once.

The dark swam around them, and drunken laughter rumbled between the trees. He tricked her very easily when she turned her back for her bloodbags, so eager to help, and so calm and quick to do it - he'd already found the kid in that depressing shit hole of a mauseleum and torn into his throat. He'd felt entitled to it, because fuck _Damon_, fuck _Elena_, **_fuck them_**. They _lied_ to him, what was the point of being good when he'd forever be stuck in a loop with these asshats who were willing to remind him just how much of an asshole he was for not being that old Stefan who remembered them? Like they wanted to pin that stranger's crimes on him, and he didn't understand, he _wasn't_ that guy. He didn't remember enough of that guy to be held responsible for him, and everyone was asking him to remember _them,_ to remember _their_ memories and _their_ happy times and Stefan was beginning to realize that those happy times _didn't exist_, he hadn't been happy then, not at all.

Caroline nudges next to him on the steps of that mausoleum later when midnight's breathing down their necks, the cold numbs his fingertips and he itches to pry skin apart just so he can feel how easily it tears. He feels out of control, rubbed raw, and angry and tired and _furious._

Caroline sighs, soft. He looks at her and unrepentantly tongues a fang, sucking and licking his teeth like he's trying to remove lipstick stuck red there instead of blood, he's trying to be an asshole so Caroline can snap at him like everyone else has and just _prove_ him right again.

Instead, a fold of fabric nudges into his fingers. Stefan finds himself slowly comprehending that Caroline has urged a _napkin_ into his hand, and that she wants him to wipe his mouth, and she's so patient, her eyes so blue in the dark, and he looks at her like. He can't even _begin_ to _get_ her, can he?

She's the only still and steady thing in this cold night, next to the violent writhing insides of him, because he's been waiting for everyone to fight him like they've been doing since he came to, but _Caroline doesn't fight him._

Her eyes are huge, her lashes curled black with mascara, and he thinks of the pretty strong jawed college boy she'd put make-up on for and there's a sly tug deep inside him that makes him _mad_, mad at the boy, but not mad at Caroline. He's beginning to realize that he can't be mad with Caroline, not really. He's really just a little in awe of her, in this corner of the wood that suddenly goes a whole lot quieter with her in it, next to him, so that the blood that's been rushing in his ears this whole night goes a little slower, slows down so he can catch up with everyone else.

She smiles small and sincere, like he's embarrassing her with her staring and she's too nice to show it, but it's hard, isn't it? "Stefan, it's okay."

It _isn't_, but it hurts him deeply how Caroline blinks up at him, her shoulder pressed against his. He thinks that the bare skin of her arm must feel chilly from the leather of his jacket, but Caroline doesn't even flinch, it's _not_ okay but Caroline looks up at him so readily like she _wants_ things to be okay, that she believe things will be okay, things will be okay for _him_.

She doesn't say _believe me_, or _cheer up,_ or you'll get over it. Caroline's okay with her not being a part of him like that, and he wonders how little she's been made to think of herself that she's willing to be shunted aside like that and be forgotten, she hasn't demanded a single thing from him, not a single memory.

He's obviously not moving, so she's taken the flimsy napkin from him, she folds it into a corner and raises it up against his mouth, mopping at his face deliberately, but gently, a pinch of concentration between her brows. She doesn't even hesitate, she doesn't _wait_ to touch him, or _ask_ him, her touching him just _is._

He moves, too, he feels a little shell-shocked after the blood, like his limbs are numb and moving, pulled by some omniscient _other_ force that isn't his own, but Stefan doesn't really care to control himself, it would feel a little dishonest to keep himself from pushing Caroline's hair back from where her neck meets her shoulder, especially when he so badly wants to.

Caroline doesn't even care, he touches her and she doesn't even flinch, she smiles a little at him, it reminds him that he's forgiven, that he'll always be forgiven, won't he? There's nothing more to talk about, _there's nothing to ask_. Just Stefan idly rolling yellow pigment between his fingers, marveling at how damned _soft_ beaten gold feels, and feeling very small, in a a small _safe_ way, like it's alright, like he's _allowed._ Childlike, just _touching_ Caroline, idly remembering that she's there and that means that so is he, that that's the only thing that makes _sense_.

Caroline with her hands on his mouth like it's nothing but touching, and Stefan's skin burning where she does, feeling that scrape of rough fabric and Caroline's unhurried, accepting silence, and how easily she touches him, and how easily he allows her.

He wants to lean down and maybe just rest there, where her neck meets her shoulder, that perfect curve that had looked so warm with the bonfire lights dancing before, the tip of his nose feels cold, maybe he'd feel warmer there?

Stefan doesn't though, because Caroline's pushed the napkin back into her jean's pocket, already grinning at him, like friends and fellow conspirators do. "There!" She bops his cold nose with a finger and Stefan doesn't want to ruin it.

"Thanks," he mutters instead, and takes his time disentangling his fingers from the coil of her hair, watching how it slips over his knuckles, rasping over his skin before letting it slide away.

She stands and brushes off her knees and he smiles at her, he feels happier, but a little unsteady too in the wake of Caroline moving from his side. The space next to him suddenly empty. This time he only hides his teeth because he thinks that if she sees how sharp with hunger she's made them that it might scare her, because it certainly scares the hell out of him.

"Thanks for…trying," finding words feels oddly dream-like, but Stefan finds them finally. "and _staying_."

"Wild horses couldn't drag me away."

And it scares him too - more than _anything_ how much it means to him when Caroline actually sounds like she _means_ that

* * *

_—_

_._

_._

_._

_You just need to breathe to feel my heart against yours now, against yours now -_  
_'cause maybe I'm just in love when you wake me up._  
_Well, maybe I'm just in love when you wake me up,_

_I said maybe I fell in love, when you woke me up._

_._

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_—_

* * *

**end notes:** I TRIED OKAY.


End file.
